The U.S. Department of the Air Force (DAF) is establishing a new Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence (CoE) to accelerate the integration of AI-powered capabilities throughout the service.

Officials anticipate the center will reach initial operating capability by the end of 2025 and become fully operational by mid-2026.

The Center of Excellence is designed to shorten the timeline between prototype development and mission adoption by consolidating personnel, resources and authorities.  It will focus on creating operational efficiencies, developing policies to eliminate barriers and accelerating AI adoption, all while ensuring that AI capabilities align with Department of Defense priorities, an Air Force spokesperson told the media. 

The new Center of Excellence will be overseen by the Department’s Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Office, led by Susan Davenport, along with members of the Data & AI Board. 

To support the initiative, the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Office is assigning existing personnel to establish the center’s core team. This team will be augmented by contract staff to ensure adequate resources are in place to deliver AI capabilities at scale across the service.

Last year, DAF introduced an experimental GenAI chatbot dubbed NIPRGPT, which is designed to respond to inquiries and aid in various tasks including correspondence, background papers, and coding, all within a secure computing environment.